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USM alumna searching for common ground in gun control discussion with documentary

Posted July 12, 2017

USM alumna and filmmaker Vickie Morgan hopes to find new insight into the gun control debate by getting people to talk.

Morgan plans to direct an as-yet-untitled documentary in which a group of people from both sides of the divisive issue will talk about their differences with each other and psychologist Dr. Kevin Polk.

"What's so hard is that everyone has polar opposite opinions, but everyone also thinks they have the right opinion," Morgan told writer Dennis Perkins of MaineToday. "People have these impressions of those on the other end of the spectrum. You don't want to engage in stereotypes, but there are extreme opinions. But I've found that most people are somewhere in the middle, that most are reasonable people."

Morgan graduated from USM in May 2016 with her bachelor's degree in Communication and she is currently working on her master's in Adult Education at St. Joseph's College.

She's also been producing a show for public access television for the past year called "Ounce of Prevention." It's on 11 stations in Maine and 18 others in 8 states around the country - Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Vermont, Virginia, Indiana and California. The show is about mental health and child abuse prevention. View a 30-second clip here.

She began filming the moderated discussions for the gun control documentary on July 11 and will conclude on July 25.